"One of our officers experienced a moment of...uh...shock," wrote the police department in a Facebook post

A police officer in Virginia, USA, recently received a bit of a shock when he came across a 'tiger' at a shopping centre while on patrol. Sharing pics of the big cat on Facebook, the Prince William County Police Department wrote: "one of our officers experienced a moment of...uh...shock before realizing this little guy was harmless."

Why was the tiger "harmless"? Because, as the cop soon realised, it turned out to be life-sized statue of a tiger, rather than the real thing.

The hilarious case of mistaken identity has now gone viral on Facebook. Asking business owners to be more careful while disposing of animal statues, the police department said in its lighthearted post: "Note to business owners, when disposing of realistic, life-size animal statues, please do so with caution."

The post, with photos of the "realistic tiger", has now gone viral with over 4,000 'likes' and hundreds of amused comments.

"That's hilarious," wrote one person in the comments section. "How exactly did he call this into dispatch?" another wondered. "Code brown. I repeat. Code brown," said a third.

This isn't the first time a life-like tiger dummy has managed to stump police officers. Last year in Scotland, a stuffed tiger toy led to a 45-minute stand-off before police officers realised it wasn't real.